A la Node

The last post got some interesting feedback.

The question still nags me, though, I feel like I haven’t gotten yet to the meat of it. If you could change the world, would you? For fun, for ideals, out duty or out of boredom? Don’t we all have some kind of super-power, something we can use to change the world? A brain, an idea, two arms and two legs and a mouth. Or two mouths, if you were especially blessed? Given the power, a lot of us would do good, but not feel obligated to… A lot of us don’t know we can change the world as without super powers… A lot of us feel like being a caretaker/diety/paternalistic figure is a bad idea, maybe even immoral on some level… Most of us would have a fantastic party if we were superman. This just isn’t answering my question, somehow.

Here’s whats nagging me: is it moral, good or right to use a superpower to change the world as you see fit? Is it moral, good or right to try to change the world as you see fit with nothing but your own two hands and brain (two brains, for those especially blessed)? Where’s the line there?

Notice that superheroes always have a super-villian to fight. Well, fighting regular bad guys is dramatically boring if you are superman, but further, I think there is a feeling that we don’t want a superman using his own judgement to mete out justice and take care of us like children. We aren’t children, we make our own messes and deal with the aftermath – we don’t want someone taking that freedom away from us. For Lex Luther types, though, we want superman to come help. Hmm.

So lets say I am a genius (keep saying it, like a mantra, Kennric is a Genius). Lets say I think the world would be a better place if X, and so I decide to use my giant (but human) brain to do X. Is X really whats best? Who knows, I think it is, and I have the power to implement it, so tough cookies if it’s a bad idea. But wait! Whats makes something a bad idea? Its negative impact on society in general maybe? Its negative impact on the person doing it would make it a bad idea, for the person doing it, so I think a negaive impact on society is a decent measure of good and bad on the larger scale. (So this isn’t an issue of moral relativity, there are measurable consequences to things you do in the world. Thats handy.) Still, the question remains – is it right for me to use my normal human powers to implement plan X for all of humanity? Would you say it was wrong if I had super powers to use in my plan?